The Management Tutorial
The Manitoba Institute of Management (MIM) offers an advanced Management Tutorial to learners who wish to produce and apply management knowledge in support of their individual initiatives. Management Tutorial content tends to be at the post-doctoral level. Acceptance of a learner into a Management Tutorial is based on the learner’s motivation and initiative.
Originally developed 35 years ago as a labour-demand construct designed specifically for the learner wishing to improve their income, the Tutorial has evolved to encompass a much wider variety of topics, all in response to learner needs.
Pedagogical Construct
The Management Tutorial focuses on the individual, although group tutorials are undertaken from time to time.
The following elements characterise the Management Tutorial.
- Development and transfer of management knowledge and skill from MIM to learner
- Mutual respect at all times between the MIM Tutor and the learner
- Compensation provided by the learner to MIM
The Tutorial is undertaken in a highly personalized manner. Communications and learning occur in face-to-face meetings and tutorial sessions, electronic interchanges, or all of these, and sometimes in group learning environments in which both our MIM Tutor and the learner have agreed to participate.
Content of the Management Tutorial is comprised of administrative theory, communications and decision theory, educational theory, intelligence theory, management science, planning theory, theories of market segmentation and labour, and other theoretical constructs which may be identified during the course of the Tutorial.
All of this is directed towards enabling the learner to change, develop, and apply their management and decision making prowess, and, therefore, application is an important value along with production of knowledge.
This emphasis on sound theoretical paradigms leading immediately to application represents a very powerful pedagogy. For the most part, Tutorial sessions are relatively informal, although, from time to time, there is a need to undertake and complete specific assignments, whether of a research or applied nature.
Tutorial Management
Tutorial sessions are organized in three distinct phases as follows:
- Dealing with definition and specification of management knowledge and skill deficiencies;
- Focusing on mitigation measures, initially at the conceptual level and subsequently in applications practice; and,
- Addressing the use and application of what has been learned. This phase is considerably more operational in nature.
With respect to duration of the Tutorial, the MIM practice has been to continue sessions to a point where the learner has actually made satisfactory change to their management performance.
Our experience is that a direct relationship exists between learner initiative and Tutorial success, and that the elapsed time of a Management Tutorial can vary from a few weeks to six months, or longer.
It has also been our experience that, while one can anticipate many of the issues which may arise during a Tutorial, it is inevitable there will be some surprises. Accordingly, our educational approach is to remain flexible in terms of actual Tutorial content.
The MIM Management Tutorial does not guarantee superior management performance on the part of the learner per se , rather, at the end of the day, it supports the learner’s own initiatives.
Put another way, the Tutorial is a positive and valuable learning experience for the learner which must inevitably lead to significant changes in learner performance, as determined by the learner. Motivation to learn is the key determinant of success.
Objectivity
At all times, we act in an objective and professional manner, taking the learner’s best interests into account and ensuring consistency within the learning experience.
Our Learners
MIM has undertaken somewhat more than 700 individual Tutorials in the past three decades and about 1,500 individuals have learned in group Tutorial sessions. This learning population is highly diverse in terms of professional and academic interest, culture, gender, and ethnicity. Learner references are available upon request.
